AUBURN — The Twin Cities won’t combine efforts looking for new trash collecting and hauling services next year.

The solid waste contracts for both cities expire in June 2011, and both plan on going out to bid to find new contractors this month.

But while Lewiston will consider the costs of expanding collections beyond the current services, Auburn will look for ways to continue the current curbside collections — with weekly trash pickups and recycling collections two times each month.

“Lewiston wants to explore more options than we are willing to look at right now,” said Auburn City Manager Glenn Aho. “But it’s too expensive for us right now.”

Lewiston Solid Waste Superintendent Rob Stalford said Lewiston will be taking three different kind of bids. One will look for a company to continue traditional solid waste and recycling curbside collections. The second would involve moving to automatic trash collections, using large city-provided barrels and a truck designed to pick those barrels up and empty them.

“What we have been told by other cities that use these services is that they really like those barrels,” Stalford said. “They are large, durable and wheeled so they are easy to move.”

Lewiston will also take bids on single-stream recycling services, allowing residents to dispose of a greater variety of recyclable refuse. Everything would go into a single bin, sorted by the solid waste company at a central location.

The new service, due to begin in July 2011, could be a combination of the different bids.

“But we are basically looking for more options, to see what is available and what it would cost,” Stalford said. The city should make the bids public later this week or early next week.

Aho said now is not the right time to be looking to expand services.

“We’ve had a difficult budget year, and we expect an even more difficult budget next year,” Aho said. “We thought about considering the automatic collections, but that would involve purchasing all new barrels for everyone we serve. That’s not a good idea right now.”

Stalford said the bin purchase for all Lewiston residents would be included in the bid price.

“But we’ve been told that the saving comes in the greater efficiency,” Stalford said. “The savings we would realize would be long term, mainly from labor. You need fewer people to collect because you don’t need people to empty the barrels.”

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